Professor John Tribe
About
Biography
Professor John Tribe studied his first degree, Masters and PhD at the University of London. He was Head of the Department of Tourism at Surrey for ten years and has served as Chair of The Association for Tourism in Higher Education and Co-Chair of the UNWTO Education Council. He is a member of the scientific committee of the EAJG Journal Quality Guide with a responsibility for ranking Tourism and Hospitality journals. He holds fellowships from the Higher Education Academy, the International Academy for the Study of Tourism, the Association for Tourism in Higher Education and the Academy of the Social Sciences. He edits the Journal of Hospitality, Leisure Sport and Tourism Education and was editor of Annals of Tourism Research for ten years.
He has evaluated both the quality of teaching and research on behalf of the UK government and served on the RAE panel in 2008 and the REF panel in 2014. He has also taken part in development and evaluation programmes for teaching and research in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia. He has led major EU projects on sustainable tourism development and curriculum development. John has authored key texts in tourism, published many research articles and presented numerous keynote addresses at International Conferences. He has published articles on tourism in The Times and The Guardian newspapers and was the recipient of the ICOT Lifetime Award for Achievement in Tourism Research.
Research interests
Sustainability, epistemology and education in tourism.
Affiliations
Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences
Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism
Fellow of the Association of Tourism in Higher Education
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Fellow of the Tourism Society
Publications
Tourism research has come a long way since the first developments in the identification and delineation of a tourism subject area in the mid 1960s.
Destination strategies are central to the future development of tourism. They are typically cre-ated using a traditional management studies approach, characterized by an emphasis on grow-ing visitor numbers along with varying commitments to sustainability. This article argues that this approach has significant shortcomings which present a research gap. To address this, the idea of critical tourism strategy is first further developed and then applied. Using a framework analysis based on critical tourism strategy, a sample of 17 English-language strategies is evaluated. The findings note many areas of good practice but also highlight important silences, omissions, and hidden biases. The conclusions advocate the widening of strategic horizons to deliver tourism guided by values as well as volumes. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
One of the leading texts in the field, The Economics of Recreation, Leisure and Tourism is the ideal introduction to the fundamentals of economics in these industries, helping you to pass an economics module as part of tourism, recreation, ...
This exciting new book, firmly embedded in the management discipline, helps to equip students and future managers with both the business skills and an ...
This book is an essential reference work for all tourism departments and libraries; those planning, developing and delivering tourism courses; those studying ...
Whilst quantitative and qualitative research methods have been comprehensively discussed in the literature there remains a notable absence of discussion about conceptual research. This study addresses this gap and provides an original contribution through a rigorous analysis of conceptual research in tourism. It distinguishes between conceptual and other research and provides a definition and evaluation of the concept. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis of published journal articles generates three significant outcomes. First, conceptual research, whilst increasing in popularity, is seen to be relatively marginal in tourism. Second a typology of conceptual research issues is constructed. Third a new definition is proposed. Finally an analysis of five examples provides a more holistic understanding of conceptual research and its processes and products. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.
This paper seeks to extend existing discussions of post-disaster tourism in New Orleans by considering how competing narratives of disaster operate within the tourist experience available in New Orleans. More specifically, we explore how personal reflections and the collective memories of a community are practiced and mobilised as occasions for tourists to connect with and share in memories of disaster in post-Katrina New Orleans. We suggest that in a city where tourism has long been vital to the economic, social and cultural make-up of the place the power of sharing has emerged through personal narratives, artefacts and experiences that, more than a decade after the disaster, are woven into the tourist experience by individuals such as tour guides, curators of exhibitions, street artists, and participants in anniversary ceremonies.
If tourism is to become part of a more sustainable lifestyle, changes are needed to the patterns of behaviour adopted by the public. This paper presents the results of research conducted amongst members of the public in England on their understanding of sustainable tourism; their response to four desired tourism behaviour goals, and expectations about the role of government and the tourism industry in encouraging sustainable tourism. The research shows a lack of awareness of tourism’s impact relative to day-to-day behaviour, feelings of disempowerment and an unwillingness to make significant changes to current tourism behaviour.
The text places the management of tourism in a structured framework, ordered around four principal themes: - Managing the Tourism System - Managing Tourism ...
This paper analyzes the nature and consequences of paradigms in tourism studies. It is somewhat unconventional in that its co-authors have not sought to produce a synthesized finished product. Rather, they have rendered their different perspectives visible through the structuring of the paper as a trialogue. It commences with Tribe's thesis that tourism studies is not governed by a restrictive paradigm at the field level but that at a societal level neoliberalism may be viewed as a restricting paradigm. Jamal and Dann then each deepen and extend the analysis of the term ‘paradigm' as they engage with the thesis providing sometimes confirmatory and sometimes conflicting analyses. A final round of clarifications and comment concludes the piece.
This book is an essential reference work for all tourism departments and libraries; those planning, developing and delivering tourism courses; those studying ...
Significant student learning experiences occur informally and incidentally in the liminal spaces that are “betwixt and between” various educational, professional, and life stages. However, the learnings which take place in such liminal spaces are not well understood; they are both problematic and powerful and have untapped potential. Our research explored informal and incidental learning processes and outcomes in the liminal space of extended independent (gap year) travel. Based on an in-depth qualitative analysis of the detailed accounts of the learning experiences of 27 participants, we present a six-stage model of how learning occurs in the liminal space of extended independent travel. In studying the relationships between informal and incidental learning in this space we uncovered a process whereby participants, at times as the result of experiencing a disorienting dilemma, had the opportunity to reflect on old ‘habitual’ ways of being and, through reflexivity, engage with new ‘re-authored’ ways of being. The implications of our findings for learning in general and management learning and education in particular are discussed. Keywords: informal and incidental learning; liminality; reflection; reflexivity; transformation
This book is the first substantial one to review this subject.
This paper outlines the consultation of recreation managers and stakeholders in forests in the United Kingdom, Portugal and Finland regarding their use of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) to plan, manage and monitor visitor impacts, The results show that there is a critical mass of sites already using the components of an EMS or capable of doing so, with some potential to fully implement an EMS. This informs the development of criteria of an EU funded feasibility study for an ecolabel for forest recreation and tourism sites.
This conceptual study addresses the significant need for every mature field of knowledge to understand itself. It builds upon previous studies of the epistemology and ontology of tourism by critiquing, synthesising, discarding, re-ordering and adding material. Its contribution is an original reconceptualisation of the structure, systems, processes and outcomes that define the field of tourism. These are explained by the creation of a model and detailed analysis that examines knowledge space, the knowledge force-field, knowledge networks, four key domains in knowledge creation and their interrelationships. Finally the model is used to examine some of the key challenges and consequences that the knowledge system reveals for tourism and its research.
Tourism is in a constant state of change, yet little attention has been paid to those aspects of tourism which have disappeared, become lost or absent. This article addresses this research gap. Inspired by an exhibition by the artist Ellen Harvey, it adopts a conceptual research method informed by empirical and philosophical analysis. Its original contribution is threefold. First it offers a novel research method based on data from Harvey's exhibition and including hyperlinks to access the art. Second it offers a detailed conceptualisation of lost tourism which includes its meaning, typology and the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. Finally practical impli-cations are considered including the need to identify, evaluate and where appropriate prevent or remediate tourism's losses.
Consumers tend to seek heuristic information cues to simplify the amount of information involved in tourist decisions. Accordingly, star ratings in online reviews are a critical heuristic element of the perceived evaluation of online consumer information. The objective of this article is to assess the effect of review ratings on usefulness and enjoyment. The empirical application is carried out on a sample of 5,090 reviews of 45 restaurants in London and New York. The results show that people perceive extreme ratings (positive or negative) as more useful and enjoyable than moderate ratings, giving rise to a U-shaped line, with asymmetric effects: the size of the effect of online reviews depends on whether they are positive or negative.
Tourism has been studied and researched in higher education for more than 40 years and in many ways it has now established itself as a significant part of the academy. However, at a time of change and rationalization in higher education, tourism, along with other areas of study, needs to be able to justify its position. Increasingly, academic managers are seeking such justifications, often using readily available metrics. The purpose of this study is to examine the position of tourism using these same metrics, for teaching, research, and impact and for three different countries, Australia, China, and the United Kingdom. In doing so, it highlights tourism’s strengths and weaknesses from a managerial perspective but at the same time it exposes the relative narrowness of this managerial gaze. It points to the need for the tourism community to strengthen its provision and broaden the gaze of the decision makers.
Whereas those working on the inside of tourism generally feel that tourism research is making good progress, the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in the UK offered an outsiders' assessment of UK tourism research that was less benign. This paper examines the results and consequences of the RAE based on an examination of the submissions made by UK higher education institutions. It describes the position of tourism in the RAE and focuses on three key issues—structure, outcomes and visibility. It invokes Kuhnian and Foucauldian perspectives to foreground hidden consequences of the RAE (termed RAE-ification by the author) that threaten the development of UK tourism research. The article concludes that tourism research, finding itself on the periphery of UK research, faces similar problems to those faced by peripheral tourism regions.
A critique of tourism curriculum proposals in the literature enables different methodological approaches to curriculum design to be identified and evaluated. Three methodological paradigms for researching into the curriculum emerge. These are the scientific positivist, the interpretive, and the critical. The analysis of this article points to differences between research paradigms, the implications of using each of them for curriculum design, and the limitations of scientific-positivist approaches. It finds that methods that are exclusively scientific-positivist may have only limited application because of their lack of attention to meaning and values and underlines the importance of approaching curriculum design mindful of the full range of research paradigms.
This book links theory with research practice to offer a more holistic account of how qualitative research can be used in tourism.
This book is an essential reference work for all tourism departments and libraries; those planning, developing and delivering tourism courses; those studying ...
Purpose This paper aims to focus on the gap between the very high prevalence of sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality industry (the phenomenon) and the limited academic discussion about it (academic knowledge), and suggests ways to bridge this gap. Design/methodology/approach The gap between phenomenon and knowledge is identified by comparing official data regarding sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality industry with a content analysis of the academic literature. Tribe’s (2006) knowledge force-field model is used to analyze this gap. Findings The five truth barriers identified by Tribe (2006), namely, person, rules, position, ends and ideology, are confirmed by the data. Five counter-forces – triangulation, interdisciplinary, collaboration, humanism and critical praxis – are developed to counter these truth barriers. Practical implications The five counter-forces offer practical solutions for research, higher education programs and the tourism industry. They demonstrate ways to reduce the high prevalence of sexual harassment in the industry and improve the working conditions of employees. Originality/value Underpinned by Tribe’s conceptual model, the paper identifies and analyzes a relative silence regarding sexual harassment in the tourism and hospitality academy in contrast to its prevalence in the industry. Additionally, it advances Tribe’s model by identifying five truth-facilitating forces. Further, it offers a research agenda for revealing hidden topics and/or biased knowledge by understanding the relationship between tourism and hospitality phenomena and academic knowledge.
Awards and labels can help consumers choose more environmentally benign tourism products and encourage more attention to the environment by producers. As in other areas, however, there is an increasing clutter of environmental awards and labels in tourism. Concerns exist about the value and appropriateness of some claims associated with these. This paper reviews and assesses environmental awards in tourism and recreation using comparative analysis. Sixteen awards relating to manufacturing, forestry, tourist attractions and tourism companies are appraised under the classifications of focus, criteria, certification system and results. Having identified the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches it is concluded that the time is ripe to rationalise awards and labels in the tourism industry and that an environmental management systems approach provides a flexible template to fulfil such a need and drive the agenda of environmental improvements in the industry.
The chapters in this volume reflect this emerging critical school of tourism studies and represent a coordinated effort of tourism scholars whose work engages ...
Four authors, including the current and founding editors, have collaborated to write this editorial that marks the 40th anniversary of Annals of Tourism Research. It has three objectives. The first is to look back and encourage reflection on the last 40. years of its development. This is done by recounting the twists and turns of the history and transformation of the journal as well as by analyzing the trends and patterns of knowledge formation. The second objective is to look sideways and examine developments in the broader social sciences of which Annals is part of. Finally the issues raised by the first two objectives provide the stimulus for a brief discussion about the future of the journal and the directions and challenges for tourism social science knowledge. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.
Despite recognition that Chinese backpackers travel in small, self-organised groups, studies have yet to examine how group dynamics affect the travel experience. Multi-sited ethnography and netnography were deployed to follow Chinese backpackers in Europe to explore their group dynamics. The findings reveal that Chinese backpackers sustain hierarchical group relations by applying cultural attributes of ‘respect for authority’ and ‘keqi’. A conflict-free status is achieved by following the codes of ‘guanxi’ and ‘conformity’. Harmony is practiced to either develop harmonious relationships or resolve potential discord. This study contributes to the literature on harmony by synthesising relevant cultural attributes to understand their applications in group dynamic. It furthermore contributes to the literature on backpacker tourism and self-organised travel group dynamics.
The use of actor-network thinking is increasingly evident in tourism research. ANT offers the researcher a practical, fieldwork-based orientation, emphasising detailed description of relationships between actors in practice. However, questions which arise for the researcher in using ANT are seldom confronted in the literature. This paper contributes to the growing ANT literature in tourism by identifying five ‘character traits’ relating to selection and use of method in ANT research. It uses an empirical case study to show how these traits are performative in the researcher’s ‘hinterland’ of methodological choices, providing theoretical and practical reflections for future researchers. It ends by considering how acknowledging these traits in the account can demonstrate adherence to accepted criteria for research quality.
The Tourism Education Futures Initiative (TEFI) seeks to provide vision, knowledge, and a framework for tourism education programs that promote global citizenship and optimism for a better world. This article provides background on TEFI, its inception, its development and its future. The article argues that a fundamental shift in tourism education is necessary to respond to global challenges impacting tourism at a fundamental level. These shifts demand higher levels of responsibility and stewardship by graduates and industry leaders. TEFI attempts to address the complexity and diversity of the shifts required by educational institutions and industry. TEFI's work began by defining a set of foundational values for tourism education programs worldwide (stewardship, ethics, knowledge, mutuality, professionalism). TEFI is now addressing other important shifts needed to provide an education of quality and relevance to tomorrow's tourism industry.
The purpose of this book is to emphasise the critical role of employees for tourism and hospitality organisations and to examine the ways and means of managing ...
It was Habermas who commented on the fact that knowledge is never interest free. But it often appears to be on the surface. Journals with their rigorous systems of double blind peer review certainly do their best to avoid partiality and add to the trustworthiness of the process. But their deeply routinised systems contribute to the " black boxing" of knowledge production. This article wishes to examine aspects of interests in knowledge. It does this by three routes of analysis. First it presents data on journal structures and process. Second it finds patterns and trends in knowledge development. Third it critically reflects on the nature of new knowledges produced. In doing so it seeks to make the workings of the black box of Annals more transparent.
The chapters in this volume reflect this emerging critical school of tourism studies and represent a coordinated effort of tourism scholars whose work engages ...
The pressures of tourism on rural destinations have meant that environmental considerations have become paramount. Practical solutions to delicate problems are being sought. This volume, the result of the EU-funded TOURFOR Project, brings together current thinking and synthesizes it for students and practitioners alike. With case studies of rural destinations - especially woodland and forest - from the UK, Portugal and England, the book is linked to the EU's good management award scheme.
The demand for ecotourism and outdoor recreation is increasing, and the pressures on land use are becoming more obvious. A large part of the experience of ecotourism and recreational landscape depends on the maintenance of forested land. Effective management of tourism and recreation in forests can provide extra income to help offset the costs of sustainable timber production and encourage biodiversity conservation. This multi-author book considers the compatibility between tourism, forestry and conservation, the management of natural resources and the involvement of stakeholders and the community. Issues are presented through case studies from a range of countries and topics covered include National Parks, peri-urban forestry and wilderness management, as well as practitioner-oriented contributions
Tribe's (2002a) concept of the Philosophic Practitioner signalled an important new direction for the tourism higher education curriculum. Yet it left crucial unfinished business since it lacked a detailed programme for promoting liberal activism. This article deploys a critical conceptual method to address this gap. Its original contribution is a rigorous analysis of the theory and practice of activating the Philosophic Practitioner. The three theoretical components of this are the making, rethinking and envisioning of the tourism world. Its practical contribution is a new pedagogy to activate philosophic practitioners for remaking the tourism world. The find-ings are highly significant for the education of a new wave of world changing tourism graduates. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The exceedingly competitive climate of academia has increased the emphasis on performance-based research funding. In this paper we evaluate the UK’s government assessment of research impact and critically comment upon the implications for future research conduct. The key findings are as follows; firstly we provide a summary of UK tourism research impact. Secondly, we demonstrate the effect of the resulting significance gap, and comment upon the consequences of the Research Excellence Frameworks' (REF) research impact assessment in terms of a research culture change. Lastly, we proposition that the current assessment structure can have negative long-term consequences in that key issues facing tourism fall outside ‘good’ research impact.
This research note outlines the results from a consultation exercise carried out by Tourfor, a European Commission project aiming to develop an ecolabel for forest-based recreation and tourism, based on implementing an environmental management system. The paper will first present the rationale of the project and then discuss the willingness of providers and agencies to apply for this ecolabel, perceived benefits, criteria, and the ecolabel management methods. The paper concludes that there is a critical mass of sites willing to apply for the ecolabel, and outlines suggestions from the respondents regarding the ecolabel.
This article deploys poststructuralist discourse theory to examine ideological influences in tourism higher education in England. It foregrounds neoliberalism and managerialism circulating from government policy to higher education institutions and illustrates how the notions of competition, markets, performativity and quality assurance, commonly associated with industry and commerce, converge in tourism higher education. It highlights the role of power in mediating the relationship between tourism higher education and institutions responsible for producing and disseminating the texts analyzed. It. points to the discursive construction of tourism higher education in England and concludes by posing the question: to what extent has this state of affairs contributed to furthering its venerability within the broader higher education academe?
Over the last forty years, education related to tourism has become established as a notable and distinct part of the repertoire of higher education. It now has a community of scholars, a body of research, journals and books and many national and international organisations. Numbers of students taking up tourism programmes has also been growing. All this suggests that the tourism academic community should feel fairly confident about their position. This is not entirely the case. This paper explores the uncertainties of tourism in higher education, both the teething problems associated with the recognition of a new area of study as well as the more fundamental issues related to the nature of tourism knowledge.
Tourism research has come a long way since the first developments in the identification and delineation of a tourism subject area in the mid 1960s.
Existing research on tourism social media users rarely extends beyond their role as appraisers of tourism and hospitality products. Such research fails to identify the different modes of experience and behavior that these users assume in their cyberspace interactions. This article demonstrates that user interactions entail much more than evaluating products. Using data from TripAdvisor, it identifies five additional user roles that define their experience and comportment online: troll, activist, social critic, information seeker, and socialite. Adopting a netnographic approach, these categories are interrogated to provide a more nuanced understanding of the online user experience in tourism social media space. Further, for each role, we glean the implicit uses and gratifications users seek from using the media. It is argued that the combined enactment of these roles creates a rich repository of experiential narratives that tourism businesses and destination managers can tap into for insights into the modern tourism consumer.
This article examines the factors that lead to the creation of quality research and those that enable that research to be robustly yet fairly curated through the journal system. It approaches this problem mainly as an autoethnography presented as a critical professional reflection. This is enriched by triangulation with other experts in the field. The issues are significant since the canon of tourism is advanced at the very place where the creation of knowledge comes up against its curation. Its original contribution is to reveal and to make explicit norms and processes which have often been tacit or hidden or taken for granted and uninspected. Further its findings are translated into a series of practical tips and recommendations.
Management of environmental impacts is a key requisite to achieve sustainable tourism and recreation; and Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) provide the framework to assess, plan, act upon, control and monitor environmental management and performance. Although a large proportion of tourism and recreation sites would be in a position to work towards an EMS, few of them are aware of what they need to do to implement such systems. This case study analyses to what extent the elements of an EMS are present in the current management of a Forest Enterprise site in the UK providing outdoor recreation, promoting nature conservation and producing timber. This paper demonstrates how an EMS can be applied to put a structure to the management of a multi-purpose site, and concludes that this site, representative of other Forest Enterprise sites, can meet the basic demands of an EMS.
This article presents evidence for a new facet of our understanding of why scuba divers pursue their interest so fervently and are willing to travel to do so. The perennial question of why people travel is addressed through the concept of eudaimonia, the good life, or flourishing, an idea originating with Aristotle but currently enjoying renewed interest in the context of positive psychology and wellbeing tourism. Results of a qualitative study are presented through themes that resonate with the authentic happiness model used to evaluate long-term satisfaction, happiness, or eudaimonia. Exploratory findings indicate that participants gain meaning and fulfillment from the acts of learning and personal growth, and they are motivated to dive because this special interest promotes positive experiences, which may lead to the good life.
This research investigates resistance strategies employed by individuals with a disability, which remain unexplored at a theoretical and practical level. This lacuna is addressed by identifying and examining different strategies either enabling or preventing resistance. Linking resistance to identity positions, the study further juxtaposes individual and collective forms of resistance related to contextual differences between the everyday life and tourism. Findings highlight that a clear-cut dichotomy of strategies enabling or contrarily preventing resistance does not exist. Yet, while the everyday life leads to transformation by relying on a collective identity, tourism offers greater possibilities to develop a sense of self-identity, as highlighted by the strong denial to make use of specialised operators. This provides a locus for the industry to act upon.
This book is an essential reference work for all tourism departments and libraries; those planning, developing and delivering tourism courses; those studying ...
The concept of alienation was adapted to tourism by MacCannell who identified it as a key feature of modernity and a strong driver of tourism where tourists seek to reconnect to authentic places and selves. Meanwhile the post-modern world has witnessed a revolution in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) especially in the realm of smart tourism where its advocates talk eagerly of the internet of everything. Such a totalising prospect demands serious review and this article fills a critical gap by conceptualising the idea of e-lienation as a specific form of alienation in ICT-enabled tourism. It combines philosophic questions of meaning, sociological theory and empirical research to demonstrate the meanings of e-lienation, its dimensions, causes, consequences and strategies of resistance.
Fully revised and updated, this second edition covers strategic management in a variety of tourism contexts.
International in its outlook, this text uses examples from Brazil, China, India and Japan, as well as Europe, North America and Australia.
Este livro traz explicações das teorias econômicas a partir de princípios básicos,aplicadas em questões do turismo e do lazer.